Freshly Blogged: Challenge 4

Click HERE to vote for this recipe.

Canned fish is such a convenient and healthy pantry staple. The inspiration behind this recipe was to take an old favourite (the fish cake) and glam it up by stacking it with other healthy ingredients. This dish is the perfect fish course for dinner party. Tasty, pretty and super nutritious! (Not to mention dead easy to make!)

Healthy Pilchard, Brown Rice and Crunchy Salad Stack

Serves 4

Cooking Time: 45 minutes

You will need

For the fish cakes:

1 400g Tin Lucky Star Pilchards in Tomato Sauce

1 large egg, beaten

1/2 cup brown rice, cooked

½ cup spring onion (white only), sliced

1 Tbls plain flour

Salt & Pepper

Vegetable oil

For the salad stack:

1 cup brown rice, cooked

Green beans

Cabbage

Fennel

Feta cheese (plain)

How to make it

For the fish cakes:

Drain the pilchards of the tomato sauce, set the pilchards aside and discard the sauce.

Mash the pilchards finely and add the beaten egg, mix well.

Add the brown rice, flour and spring onions, mix well.

Season well with salt and pepper.

Brush you hands with some oil, and roll the pilchard mixture into golf ball sized balls.

Flatten each ball to form a fish cake.

Cover and set aside in the fridge until ready to fry.

When ready to fry, heat some oil (about 1 cm deep) in a heavy based frying pan.

Shallow fry the fish cakes in batches until browned and crispy on both sides.

Drain on paper towels.

Serve warm on the salad stack.

(These fish cakes are flaky, so handle them with care.)

For the salad stack:

Blanch the green beans in boiling water until tender, drain and plunge into an ice bath to stop the cooking and retain the fresh green colour.

Once cool, drain again and finely slice, set aside.

Slice the cabbage and fennel (white part only) into very fine slices.

Crumble 1 – 2 wheels of feta.

To compile:

Place a cookie cutter the size of the fish cakes in the centre of a small plate.

Take a 1/4 cup cooked room temperature brown rice (season with salt & pepper), and press it down firmly into the cookie mould to form a round shape. Gently remove the mould.

Gently place a warm fish cake on top of the rice.

Layer some finely sliced cabbage onto the fish cake.

Place another warm fish cake on top of the cabbage.

Layer with finely sliced fennel.

Garnish with sliced green beans, crumbled feta and a sprig of fresh green fennel.

Serve with a wedge of fresh lemon.

Visit www.freshlyblogged.co.za for more info on the competition.